Chopped!

I suspect cooking at Lloyd will be somewhat like my personal version of Chopped, except that I’ll have more time to prepare and a better idea of the secret ingredients. Preparing a 5-course dinner in the middle of nowhere? Yup, preparation is key, so I’ve been getting together some friends every week and cooking sample menus for them. The rules are simple: bring your appetite and be brutally honest.

Getting the next course going while keeping an eye on everyone’s reaction to their first bite is tough. But I believe honest feedback is worth a bit of stress. And while a few dishes have landed on the chopping block, most have been quite successful.

The latest dinner was last weekend—Dez ate two 5-course dinners in two days and stated several times that he was so full he might explode. Funny though...he never left a crumb on his plate. And for not being a dessert guy, he literally licked the plate clean, even on the night I made two desserts.

A good sign? I think so.